Few contemporary comics divide opinion like Stewart Lee. For long-time fans and comedy obsessives, he is touched by genius, a maverick whose deep-rooted fascination with comedy lies in seeing how far he can stretch the boundaries of the form while still making an audience laugh. For those who prefer a more obvious strike rate of…
Tonight, Stewart Lee tells us, he will be tackling three main topics. Charity. The Government. And Adrian Chiles. Normally, he’d try to be more seamless than this. “Why hasn’t it got”, he asks himself on behalf of his fans, “a narrative arc like the other shows?” The answer is that he is working up material…
Stewart Lee is pretending to be mildly crap. He keeps discussing how he is none too funny, but the point is that his commentary on his own shortcomings thereby turns into a droll running gag. He achieves this with deadpan relish. His delivery is, of course, characteristically sardonic, albeit with an amused glint in the…
Stewart Lee breaks all the rules. Not the rules you’re supposed to break. The other rules are the ones Stew breaks. The proper rules. You wouldn’t expect anyone to break these rules but Stew breaks them. He breaks the rules that are proper. That’s what industry practitioners call the ‘in’. Illustrating the process behind the…
If you’ve never been to a stand-up gig, Stewart Lee is probably not the best place to start. But if you’ve recently been bitten by the comedy bug and yearn for something more considered than the McIntyre, Manford and Bishop brigade, Lee’s latest show, Vegetable Stew, is perfect. After two decades in the trenches this…